Rupert Murdoch could buy Fox Sports Networks from Disney

The second irony is that Murdoch can once thank his rival Comcast for making money if he ended up with the networks.

When Comcast and Disney were looking to buy Fox's assets earlier this year, one thing was not in doubt: Murdoch wanted to sell to Disney. On several occasions, Murdoch is aligned with Disney's offerings against Comcast.

Yet Comcast's competitive offerings have allowed Murdoch to obtain an additional $ 19 billion for its asset portfolio.

Now, Comcast's participation could help it to make sports networks cheaper.

Originally, Disney had agreed to buy Fox's assets for $ 52 billion. Comcast's competing offers on Fox pushed the price up to $ 71.3 billion. During this process, it pushed up the valuation of the RSNs, as was the case for all assets (including 39% of the British TV provider Sky, which Comcast then agreed to buy).

It is almost certain that Disney will not find a buyer able to pay this exaggerated value just for the networks. The most likely competitor of New Fox (with the exception of a competitive offer from a company such as John Malone's Liberty Media) is a private equity firm – and it's unlikely that a leveraged buyout company could win the battle for RSNs and convince its sponsors to make a future return on assets.

(Disney, by the way, will end up recovering $ 15 billion for selling its 39% stake in Sky and probably about $ 20 billion for the RSNs, thus increasing this deal from $ 71.3 billion to $ 36 billion. dollars.)

It is possible that Google, Amazon or another technology company may be interested in sports rights networks. But that seems unlikely. Regional sports networks are linked to a traditional cable system that high-tech companies generally regard as anathema. If Amazon or Google want regional sports rights, they can wait for the current contracts to expire and bid.

The final irony is that Fox's decision to sell the RSN to Disney may have convinced Murdoch that it was best to keep them. In the months following Fox's decision to sell, New Fox clarified its focus by focusing on information and sports. Netflix publicly congratulated the company for this decision last week.

It is possible that Fox has come to the conclusion that owning RSNs makes more sense than selling them, even if she did not think so ten months ago.

Disclosure: Comcast is the owner of NBCUniversal, the parent company of CNBC and CNBC.com.